The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber, may be my favorite book of all time, besides some choice classics. I’ve written about this lush, transporting tome before, but for the past couple weeks I’ve been re-reading it (again), and I’m surprised by how much I still learn from it every time I pick it up. It’s taught me about the world a woman lives in and how her choices and determination and kindness affect others. It’s taught me about the importance and relevance of writing a complex female heroine. And that’s who Sugar is.

Sugar is one of the best female heroines I’ve ever read. She’s a 19-year-old prostitute in Victorian London who’s gained a reputation for giving men the best experience, a reputation that has allowed her to move from St. Giles, a London slum, to Silver Street, the “middle-class,” so to speak. Sugar has a harrowing childhood history, having been forced into prostitution when she was only 13 by her own mother. She’s not typically attractive: she’s tall, “scrawny,” flat-chested, and she has ichthyosis, a severe form of psoriasis that makes her entire flesh cracked and rough. But she’s brilliant, well-read, charming to a fault, and filled with a white-hot anger for the world. “God damn God, and all His horrible filthy Creation” is her oft-repeated motto, and on her days off, she writes a novel in which the heroine, her namesake, slowly and sadistically murders the men who have taken advantage of her over the years. All Sugar wants to do is escape, which is so understandable for someone like her, a survivor, a warrior, and she finds her way out when she meets a man named William Rackham.

Rackham, a cowardly man of complex, sometimes paradoxical character, falls in love with Sugar and makes her his mistress, removing her from Silver Street and moving her into an apartment in Marylebone, and then he makes her the governess to his daughter. As Sugar moves up through the strata of this labyrinthine late-Victorian society, she comes to terms with the person she’s become, and the person she wants to be. I’m constantly held in thrall to Sugar, and to her complexities.

Sugar is at once nurturing, cutthroat, compassionate, impatient, self-loathing, confident, scared, courageous, insecure, calculating and passionate, and she is as real as you or me. On Silver Street, she’ll tell a man anything to make him love her, and do anything to keep him paying. When she is esconced as a mistress in Marylebone, she falls victim to bouts of self-doubt and insecurity, constantly afraid that William will stop loving her and either dump her back onto the streets, or else kill her. She begins to feel true affection for William as well, and must reform her long-held beliefs that all men are beasts. She also uses her brilliance to spy on William and his troubled wife Agnes, following them to balls and theatres, eager to use any knowledge she gleans to make sure she never loses her status. Sugar must be cunning to rise out of the gutter in which she was born. But it’s when Sugar is appointed governess to William’s daughter Sophie that she learns the most about herself, and finds liberation in becoming a virtual mother to a six-year-old girl.

Lately, Sugar has been confounded, even disturbed, but how intensely physical her feelings for Sophie have become. What began, on her arrival in the Rackham house, as a determination to do her hapless pupil no harm, has seeped from her head into her bloodstream and now pumps around her body, transmuted into a different impulse entirely: the desire to infuse Sophie with happiness.”

Sugar’s character is also interesting when set aside Agnes Rackham, the wife of William. Agnes is a little bit “mad,” and when she sees Sugar loitering around her property (trying to glean details about William’s life), Agnes believes Sugar is her guardian angel. Agnes is the perfect image of female, the “ideal” in every way: she is curvy yet slim and petite, has alabaster skin and big, blue eyes, grace, charm, beauty, and every other asset you’ve come to understand as the “perfect woman.” Against Agnes, Sugar feels both superior in intelligence and cripplingly inferior in appearance. Sugar both cares for and loathes Agnes in turns, but both women are complex, and function as a way to break down the virgin/whore dichotomy. Agnes is the typical virginal woman, but she can also be cruel and shallow. And Sugar is both an angel (to Agnes) and a whore (to William) but she’s also a mother, a daughter, a “fallen woman,” an intelligent writer, and the ultimate hero with the ultimate hero’s journey. Reading about Sugar makes apparent the need for complex female heroines in all stories from sitcoms to literature, to erase the notion that a woman must be an “ideal,” or that she is either a whore or an angel. Sugar is both, at once, literally.

It’s a long book—830ish pages—but it’s so completely worth the time. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn about a slice of Victorian history, if you want to read about sexual politics, and especially if you want to read an interesting, complex portrait of a young woman trying desperately to find her place in a hostile world.

I don’t know what it is with Romola Garai, but she has managed to play the main character in the film adaptations of six of my favorite books. And in her other movies she’s equally as fantastic. She’s just ugh–amazing.

I Capture the Castle

A young Romola Garai plays Cassandra Mortmain, a seventeen-year-old girl who lives in a refurbished castle in the 1930s in England. She writes about her quirky family and about falling in love for the first time. This book reminds me of a meadow of flowers, in the best way. It’s Austenesque. And Cassandra is an insightful narrator and wonderful character.

NEED I SAY MORE. She plays the dry-lipped, brilliant young prostitute I fell in love with many years ago. The Crimson Petal and the White is probably my favorite book of all time, and when I learned Romola Garai would be playing Sugar, I screamed a lot. It was an emotional day.

Atonement

Okay okay, she’s the supporting actress to Keira Knightley’s top billing but still, Briony Tallis is equally as important in this novel, and much more complicated. She resurrects her bob in this movie, to my delight.

Vanity Fair

Also a supporting actress in this one but again, she brings a level of complexity to a frankly annoying character. She plays the motherly Amelia Sedley, a kind of clueless companion to the devilish Becky Sharp, who is one of the best and worst characters in literature, and an amazing antihero.

Emma

Yes, she played the handsome, clever, rich Emma. Romola Garai is truly the best blessing of existence. She’s also a dab hand at Shakespeare adaptations.

Check her out. I think I’ve seen 90% of her movies, and that’s modest considering how much I love her.

This post is exactly what it sounds like: My top five choices for a shopping companion, literary edition. Welcome to my wildest fantasies.

I know a lot of people have a list of historical figures that they’d love to have lunch with; for example, I would love to chat with Jane Austen, Genghis Khan, Queen Elizabeth I, Shah Jahan and Anne Boleyn over a glass of Malbec or two. But I would also love to meet some entirely fictional people. More, I would love to go shopping with them.

Shopping with someone is a unique bonding experience, and choosing the right companion marks the difference between a new, glitzy, flattering wardrobe achieved spectacularly on budget, and leaving the strip mall empty-handed and with the mean reds. You need someone who will offer sound advice: honest, but tactful. The ideal companion must be patient and funny, frugal yet spontaneous, and will never tell you that the dress you’re wearing makes you look fat. Without further ado, here are my top five picks for a fictional shopping companion, in no particular order:

Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

One of my lifelong dreams is to go shopping with Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling. Holly is an excellent shopping companion because she’s perpetually on-budget. She also understands the therapeutic power of a well-stocked jewelry store like no other. Shopping with Holly, with her sparkling personality and irresistibly skewed logic, can never get boring. Also, Holly will most likely shoplift something amazing for you, or she may surprise you and buy it outright, saving it for a gift later. Just remember to repay her with something illegal, or better yet, something sparkly from Tiffany’s.

Spoken by Holly: “I don’t want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together.”

Lily Bart, The House of Mirth

Lily Bart will take you around to all the best stores. Be prepared to put on your highest knockoff Louboutins and walk daintily through Chanel and Saks, eyeing merchandise askance and making salespeople show you their best wares. She’ll buy you a cafe au lait and a macaron from a French cafe on Fifth and gently remind you to never buy anything on a whim. Lily takes her time with purchases and is accustomed to a certain standard of living. She never settles for anything less than perfect luxury. Hopefully she buys you something, because you can’t afford that sh*t. Lily Bart will also nurture you and make sure you look like a million New York bucks.

Spoken by Lily: “Don’t you ever mind not being rich enough to buy all the books you want?” Yes. Yes I do mind, Lily.

Rebecca Sharp, Vanity Fair

Becky Sharp understands the power of a truly eye-catching wardrobe. Okay, so you may spend all your money on garish finery and end up homeless, but shopping with Becky Sharp is worth the risk. She has a unique and provocative fashion sense, and will challenge you to try on clothes you’d never have given a second glance. She won’t lie to you to pretend something looks good, but she may lie to you about the price. Be prepared for her blunt honesty but also for her venomous instinct for self-preservation. If you pick up something she wants, give it to her. It probably looks better on her anyway.

Spoken by Becky: “Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.”

Emma Woodhouse, Emma

Shopping with Emma may test your patience, but the girl does have taste. She’ll tell you what to buy and why to buy it, but when her back is turned, you can return it to the shelf without her noticing. But if her choices do strike your fancy, you’ll know you’re leaving with clothes that will undoubtedly cement your social standing. And if you’re vacillating between buying a dress and not, she’ll just rip out of your hands and leave the store, taking your dignity with her. But then she’ll treat you to a Jamba Juice and a fresh helping of the latest gossip.

Spoken by Emma: “A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.”

Sugar, The Crimson Petal and the White

I would just faint dead away if given the opportunity to shop with the protagonist of my favorite novel. Sugar is a self-sufficient, intelligent young prostitute in Victorian London, taking every opportunity to improve her lot in life. Shopping with Sugar means making informed choices about what you need rather than what you want. Luckily for you, what you need is a brand-new bespoke wardrobe in order to convince high society that you belong. While you shop you can discuss the latest literary effort by Mr. Charles Dickens, and debate the finer points of wealth disparity in England. Shopping with Sugar is also an economic experience, given that her rich lover William Rackham will be footing the bill. You’ll leave with plenty of beribboned boots and your savings intact.

Spoken by Sugar: “Put a black dress on, take a deep breath, puff your cheeks out and they’ll mistake you for the Queen.” Wise Sugar, extolling the undying power of the LBD.

Who I would NOT want to shop with:

Emma Bovary, Madame Bovary

I would literally drain my savings account if I went shopping with Madame. Or worse, tumble headfirst into a chasm of debt, and I really don’t fancy arsenic.

Bella Swan, Twilight

Woefully devoid of fashion sense, I feel like Bella wouldn’t be the ideal shopping companion. Maybe I’d take her sister Alice along for a second opinion, or stash a head of garlic for protection.

I’ve come to realize that Michel Faber is really ****ing weird, and I love it. My third Faber adventure, after The Crimson Petal and the White and The Fire Gospel is his collection of three novellas entitled The Courage Consort. I liked it much better than The Fire Gospel and can see how his wit and his sense of the strange and surreal influenced the writing of Crimson Petal. These three novellas are witty, ironic, sometimes downright ridiculous, and unexpectedly poignant at times. The three are “The Courage Consort,” “The Hundred Ninety-Nine Steps,” and “The Fahrenheit Twins.”

“The Courage Consort” begins this collection. It tells the story of an a cappella group named, appropriately, The Courage Consort. Their group is christened such both because their founder’s surname is Courage and also for the old Wesleyan adage, “sing lustily and with much courage.” Roger and Catherine Courage are a married couple in the Consort who live for weeks in the Chateau de Luth, practicing a modern piece for a concert. The dynamic of the five members of the consort figure prominently in the narrative, as does the mental state of Kate, who suffers from depression. Kate has fantasies of suicide and is unhappy in her marriage. She also hears an ethereal, anguish-filled child’s cry every night during her sleep. Kate is the main protagonist of this story, as she navigates her awkward, sexless marriage; her relationship with the only other woman in the consort, a sexual, confident mother named Dagmar; and the kinship she feels with bulky, overweight Ben Lamb. It’s an interesting story of character development and the way these very different people manage not to rip each others’ hair out. When tragedy strikes the consort, they must examine their principles and begin new lives.

“The Hundred Ninety-Nine Steps” takes place in the UK town of Whitby, the same setting as Dracula, a gothic setting for a less-than-gothic novella. It does have touches of the dramatic, however:

She closed her eyes, longing to trust him, longing to rest her head in the pillowy crook of his arm, but at the last instant, she glimpsed sideways, and saw the knife in his other hand. Her scream was gagged by the blade slicing deep into her throat, severing everything right through to the bone of her spine, plunging her terrified soul into pitch darkness.

Thus this novella begins, with a thirty-something archaeology student named Siân on a dig of a monastery in Whitby. Since her arrival in Whitby, Siân has been plagued by the same murderous dream night after night. A shy, idealistic woman, Siân meets a fit jogger named Mack, a Londoner in town to handle his late father’s affairs. The two are attracted to each other but find themselves constantly butting heads on issues of religion, antiquity, and faith. Siân believes strongly in the virtue of the medieval monks and priests, in the truth and nobility of history, in a higher power. Mack, a cynic, tries to disabuse Siân of her long-held notions and comes across, to me, as obnoxious and self-serving. When Mack discovers a message in a bottle in his father’s estate, he enlists Siân’s help with interpreting its contents, hoping for a grisly tale of murder. What they find plays with the readers’ expectations of the gothic genre and sheds new light upon the nature, and sometimes contradictory nature, of religion and faith. A great, quick read with solid, interesting characters and a satisfying ending.

“The Fahrenheit Twins” was my favorite of the three stories. It’s set on an island near the North Pole and follows the lives of young twins Marko’cain and Tainto’lilith as they make sense of their bleak, desolate world around them. The twins are the children of ethnologists who are conducting research on nearby aboriginal communities on the island. Marko’cain and Tainto’lilith, who are probably around ten years old, were born on the island, possess impressive survival skills, know nothing of the outside world, and together, piece together little bits and pieces of facts they write down in a book. Their banter and wit and they way they finish each others’ sentences lend this story a touch of levity in an otherwise bleak novella. Bleak, because their ethnologist mother dies, and their alleged father (it’s implied that an aboriginal man is actually the twins’ biological father) sends them on a deadly expedition from which they must find their way back. Because of my love of the North, the lively little characters, and the dry humor of this piece, it was easily my favorite.

Faber is an interesting writer for the way he infuses his stories with a bit of surrealism and the fantastical without explaining anything; for example, the nightmares Siân has echo the murder she discovers in the bottle’s message; and Kate in “The Courage Consort” never discovers the source of that eerie, unearthly child’s cry. I liked those elements of unexplained, otherworldly events. They add a touch of surreality to the narrative and do much to explain the characters’ mental states.

Next on the Faber agenda: the short-story collection Some Rain Must Fall. Stay tuned!

Michel Faber’s slim novella The Fire Gospel is part of a collection of novellas called The Canongate Myth Series, featuring modern retellings of ancient myths. The Fire Gospel is inspired by the Greek Titan Prometheus, who introduced humankind to fire and lived to regret it. The subtitle of this work reminded me instantly of Frankenstein, and I was wary of Faber trying to outdo that text or become overly influenced by it, but this concern was unfounded because these stories have no relation to each other. Frankenstein is a tragedy through and through while Faber’s The Fire Gospel is a romp; this story turns everything into a parody, from the publishing industry and the media, to similar stories and even the Prometheus myth itself.

Meet middle-aged Theo Griepenkerl, the world’s foremost Aramaic scholar. He has just been dumped by his girlfriend and quickly jumps a plane into the heart of war-torn Iraq to negotiate exhibition rights with the curator of the Mosul museum. While he’s there, predictably, a bomb goes off, ravaging the museum and destroying some major artifacts. After the initial shock of the blast, Theo notices the pregnant belly of an ancient statue has been broken open, and inside lay perfectly-preserved scrolls written in Aramaic, scrolls written by a man who witnessed the life and death of Jesus.

I describe the plot as contrived contrivance because everything happens so perfectly, as Faber meant it to. The premise of the novel satirizes the overnight sensation of The Da Vinci Code,and parodies the plot of the dashing professor whose discoveries rewrite history and incense millions of Christians. If you can’t guess already, that’s exactly what happens to Theo Griepenkerl.

Upon translating the scrolls, written by a man named Malchus, Theo finds that the Bible’s version of New Testament events do not tally with Malchus’s eyewitness account. Malchus, with the aid of Theo, unknowingly debunks several miracles included in the Bible. For example, Malchus is identified as the man whose ear was cut off by a Roman soldier, but in his account, it never grew back–it just got infected and then healed like a normal wound. More shocking discoveries include Jesus’s “real” last words: not the Biblical “It is finished” that reflects courage and godliness, but a human plea for death, “Please, somebody, please finish me.” And the most shocking discovery is that Jesus was never buried at all, and his so-called Resurrection was the result of the twelve disciples experiencing collective hallucinations while on drugs.

Needless to say, the book becomes an instant bestseller. It outrages millions of Christians who find it impossible to tally their beliefs with what is allegedly historical truth. In this manner, Faber criticizes organized religion, but not belief in God. Those who are able to accept Jesus’s humanity and still believe he was God incarnate are applauded, while those who burn Theo in effigy or lose their faith altogether as a result of the text are roundly criticized. Faber suggests that faith in human courage is more important than faith in a perfect God, whether or not you choose to believe in God.

But back to the Prometheus myth. As you probably know, Prometheus gave humanity the gift of fire against the express command of Zeus. As punishment, Prometheus is chained to a rock for all eternity while every day buzzards feast on his liver, and every night it grows back–forever. Theo gets his divine comeuppance, though in a rather more ridiculous way. At a book signing, two thugs kidnap Theo and hold him hostage, forcing him to record a video announcing that he made the entire thing up. The video is aired as Theo is released by one of his captors after sustaining a serious gunshot wound. The narrative ends as Theo nears death, and passersby are responsible for getting him to a hospital before he dies.

Thus Theo becomes a modern Prometheus, responsible for bringing mankind “fire” in the form of religious truth. However, his gift is not as enlightening as Prometheus’s was. He finds in mankind an unwillingness for the truth and a stubborn preference for the familiarity and comfort of religion. Theo is also not the magnanimous Prometheus helping humanity; he’s a self-serving, arrogant, grumpy atheist who cares more about his own well-being than that of humanity. These details turn the Prometheus myth on its head and definitely makes for funny reading.

It’s a weird little book. I read this slim novel in four hours, racing through the text and leaving myself little time to ruminate on the story. I found it ridiculous (albeit endearing) when I was reading and it was only on reflection that I realized its many layers. I don’t know if I’ll read it again, but it definitely made me think about religion versus faith, and human nature. This was the first book I read by Michel Faber after The Crimson Petal and the White enchanted me a few years ago.

I wish I could live inside this book. Like literally open the spine and dip down in between like I’m tucking myself into bed and watch the entire book play in front of my eyes like a really lifelike movie set where everything is real and no one sees you. Wait—like Harry in Chamber of Secrets­, yeah just like that. My Favorite Books: The Crimson Petal and the White.

Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them. (3)

The best books I’ve ever read are the ones that don’t come from recommendation or from hype or heavy advertising. No, the best books I’ve ever read are the ones that come to me inexplicably. They’re the ones I stumble upon when I’m looking for another book. They’re the ones I buy because I like the front cover, or the way the pages feel, or because it reminds me of something else.

I picked up The Crimson Petal and the White because it was mentioned by Emily Gilmore in Gilmore Girls, no joke. She reads it and recommends it (drunkenly) to Lorelai, and so when I found it in Barnes & Noble, I had to have it. Little did I know it would easily become one of my top ten favorite books of all time. Faber draws the reader in from the first page by introducing himself as your guide to late-Victorian London. He addresses the reader directly, as in the quote above, using second person, which he uses sporadically throughout the novel. The direct address adds a new level of reality to a world you think you know. To quote The Real World, you have no idea.

Faber’s Victorian London is part Dickens and part a parody of Dickens, and a parody of what most people are used to reading about the Victorian era. Yet, his work is astoundingly well researched and it throbs with life. Nothing looks or feels like Faber’s Victorian London. Each “level” of society is described in such minute detail, exhaustive but addictive, that never dips into encyclopedic and easily transcends the divide of the last hundred-odd years. And I have never read a character I’ve liked better than (though perhaps I’ve liked some just as much as) Sugar, the prostitute and protagonist.

Sugar is the most talented prostitute in London by virtue of reputation–she’ll do anything, and everything the other girls won’t, and she’ll do it with a smile. Working in a “house of ill repute,” Sugar has racked up an impressive list of clients and boasts a varied repertoire of sexual favors.

What I love most about Sugar are her fierce independence, her intellect, her cleverness, and her sense of self-preservation. She’s also not conventionally beautiful: skinny, flat-chested, freckled, and afflicted with a form of psoriasis called ichthyosis, she’s nevertheless charismatic and irresistible. Sugar is aware of her power over weak men. She’s smarter than they are and confident in her abilities. She’s also insecure and emotional, maternal and protective. Sugar begins the novel convinced that she knows the world and that she hates everyone in it. She’s a hard cynic in the beginning but by the end, she is forced to question her worldview and her blind hatred for others and finds a way to steal happiness.

Then we have William Rackham, the sniveling, cowardly, attentive, proud little man who contracts Sugar as his personal mistress. A perfume magnate and an objectively powerful man, Rackham feels inferior to Sugar and grows obsessed with her. Curiously, Rackham likes her not only for her perceived sexual appetite or for her body, but also for her ready mind and quick wit. Rackham treats her almost like an equal, like a modern-day wife, seeking her advice about difficult business dilemmas and reveling in her intellect. Despite his pride and arrogance, he likes having a verbal sparring partner as a bedmate, and fancies himself in love with her. Through her relationship with Rackham, Sugar moves up in society and finds within herself a capacity for kindness, maternal love, and selfless courage.

Rackham is enough of a complicated character but joining this stellar ensemble cast are his brother, the virginal, self-flagellating, intellectual Henry Rackham; William Rackham’s wife, the mentally ill and cripplingly sheltered Agnes Rackham; the progressive, masculine, and religious Emmeline Fox; the naive and bed-wetting little Sophie Rackham; and a smattering of vivid others that flesh out the narrative with questions about spirituality, religion, feminism, sin, pseudo-science, social structures, and so, so much more. This thing is a masterpiece, I tell you.

This city I am bringing you to is vast and intricate, and you have not been here before. You may imagine, from other stories you’ve read, that you know it well, but those stories flattered you, welcoming you as a friend, treating you as if you belonged. The truth is that you are an alien from another time and place altogether.

When your first picked me up, you didn’t fully appreciate the size of me, nor did you expect I would grip you so tightly, so fast. Sleet stings your cheeks, sharp little spits of it so cold they feel hot, like fiery cinders in the wind. Your ears begin to hurt. But you’ve allowed yourself to be led astray, and it’s too late to turn back now. (3)

There, now: aren’t you hooked?

Recently, a BBC mini-series was released and when I saw the commercials on television featuring my favorite actress, Romola Garai, as Sugar, I yelled in excitement. The adaptation isn’t perfect but it’s nice: I think Rackham and Sugar are cast perfectly but the others are a miss, and the movie fails to capture most of the nuances that make this book so unique. Still, it was worth watching just to see Garai as Sugar. I read that she fought for the role, which makes me admire her even more.

I recently read this great blog post and decided to compile ten of my favorite books of all time. The original post didn’t give a limit but I liked the idea of a “Top 10 Favorite Books” category and the exercise really made me stop and think about the books I’d read both recently and in the past that have influenced me and changed my life. In no particular order:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the book I read again and again: This novel is my favorite of JK Rowling’s magical oeuvre, and I read it so often that my copy is well-worn by now. It still reminds me of being eleven years old and making my mother drive me to Waldenbooks first thing in the morning so I could pick up the book on the release date. It also conjures memories of growing up with Harry Potter and how the novels instilled in me not just a love of reading, but also the desire to become a writer.

Pride and Prejudice, the one I love the most: This one is a no-brainer. I love everything about it, from the sarcastic way Lizzy’s father treats the women in his family, to the absolutely abhorrent Mr Collins and how much I love laughing at him, to the perfect story arcs of Elizabeth and Darcy. So many people adore the love story but this book is about so much more. Not only does Austen indict the social strata that make Elizabeth and Darcy’s ultimate union difficult, but she also weaves into the narrative arguments about the tension between conservative and liberal politics and allows the reader to form an opinion without even realizing they’ve done it. Austen takes a normal subject—love—and manipulates the story in such many layered ways that there is something new to learn each time.

Wuthering Heights, my favorite book: This book gets me every time. Love the characters or hate the characters, no one can deny the charisma of Heathcliff, the beauty of the moors, the overwhelming atmosphere of mystery and danger, the way you kind of want to shake Catherine and tell her to stop screaming but you root for her anyway, and the way you kind of hate the Lintons for no reason. The love of Catherine and Heathcliff forms the basis of every obsessive love story ever told and ever hated, but this love isn’t supposed to be healthy: it’s supposed to consume, overpower, even poison you. Wuthering Heights is the ultimate catharsis and it’s always a pleasure.

Angel, the book that changed my life: This novel is a forgotten little gem by the less famous Elizabeth Taylor. It tells the story of a young romance writer in the early 1900s, Angel Deverell, whose arrogance and dissociation from reality result in her ruin and isolation. The character of Angel is meant to be an allegory for those authors of Taylor’s time whose florid prose and shallow plotlines made instant bestsellers but whose books were vacuous and insipid. Angel thinks she’s the best writer to have ever lived and is completely blind to criticism, insisting all others are jealous of her wit and brilliance. Taylor is fierce and unapologetic in her harsh treatment of Angel, and the book reads like a sharp and insightful social commentary. I’d say Elizabeth Taylor read a lot of Austen and took good notes.

The Crimson Petal and the White, the best book I’ve ever read: I’ve mentioned before how much I love this book. I love Faber’s direct address to the reader, his bold and brave descriptions of prostitutes and dirt and death, his four-dimensional depiction of late Victorian London, and most of all, his unbelievable, believable characters. Sugar, a fiercely intelligent young prostitute with a reputation for granting any wish or desire, is one of the most indomitable characters I’ve ever met, and one of the most emotionally complex. William Rackham, an easily cowed man with unearned pride, is at times both pitiful and fearsome. Agnes, Rackham’s wife, will make you want to go back in time and give every Victorian woman some feminist literature. There are so many more characters who make this book live and breathe every time I crack open the cover.

East, the book that made me who I am: East isn’t your typical YA novel. Based on the story East of the Sun and West of the Moon, East also borrows from Beauty and the Beast: it tells the story of a Norwegian girl whose faith in her family fails after she learns her superstitious mother has lied to her all her life about her “birth direction.” Birth direction is a spiritual belief that the direction in which one is facing at birth determines his or her fate. Furious with her family, Rose takes the opportunity to leave when an enchanted bear offers her family riches in return for kidnapping Rose. The character of Rose and the northern setting instilled in me a love of the North that has not abated since my early teen years. It has also inspired me to learn about Norse mythology, which has indelibly affected my writing and my interests.

Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke: Rilke is my favorite poet, save perhaps for Tennyson. This collection houses all of his major works, from The Duino Elegies to selections from his novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. This book has so many tabs sticking out of it from my years of reading and marking my favorite passages and lines that nearly every page is marked by now, and as an added bonus, this is the best translation of his work I’ve ever read.

I Capture the Castle, the book that makes me cry every time: Dodie Smith also must have read Austen. The plot mirrors Pride and Prejudice in subtle ways but with deliberate differences: two sisters meet two brothers (whereas P&P features close friends) and the ensuing love triangles and unrequited loves form the backdrop of a larger narrative of one girl’s coming-of-age. Cassandra Mortmain, the protagonist, is the younger sister of a close-knit, eccentric British family living in an old castle in the late 1940s. Cassandra is a charming and naïve narrator, yet she shows a strength and courage that are inspiring. During the novel, she grows in ways that are familiar to any woman who has experienced the joy and despair of falling in love for the first time.

The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: The nearly definitive Anne Boleyn Bible. Eric Ives is a meticulous biographer and holds no [discernible] bias for or against Anne, but lets the facts speak for themselves. From his book, not only do I have an in-depth account of Anne’s major life events and a rough sketch of her complicated personality, but I also know exactly how much she spent on clothing, what the toddler Elizabeth I wore, and what her wardrobe expenditures would have totalled had she reigned for a lifetime rather than for her three short years. This book is a testament to the strong, intellectual force Anne truly was and does the best job in dispelling the “femme fatale” persona that Anne Boleyn has fallen victim to repeatedly.

A Room With A View, my favorite book: My favorite books seem to be populated with strong female characters, albeit the character of Lucy was not always so in my favorite Forster novel. Really, this book is a romp. The British Lucy Honeychurch and her stodgy old chaperone visit Italy intending to enjoy a prim, proper, tour-guided vacation and instead stumble upon a thoroughly uncouth George Emerson and his absolutely appalling father. George falls in love with Lucy and kisses her most inappropriately; Lucy, upon her return to England, finds it impossible to forget the dashing yet shy George Emerson and finds that Emerson has kindled desire within her. Just thinking about this book is enough to make me sound like the author of a comedy of manners, but that’s what this book is. It’s a book about stodgy old England and how Italy makes us lustful. And it’s a novel about defying societal expectations and following your heart.

Runners-up: Ella Enchanted, which I read when I was nine years old; Inkheart, also a YA I read as a teen with a great protagonist and a lot of bookporn; The Virgin Suicides, which still haunts me every day; and Lolita, enough said.

So what’s your ideal bookshelf? Give it a try, and you can post a link to your own ideal bookshelf below.